An Unconventional Family
by astronomyluvr
Summary: Sam and Dean are hurt during a hunt, but our favorite angel shows up and saves them. Set after Lucifer and Michael are freed, but before the events of the cage. ONESHOT. I own nothing.


_An Unconventional Family_

It was hard to understand why things happened to them. Why all of the evil in the world, it seemed, was attracted to them. Was it because they were destined to be something that they really wanted no part of? Or was it because they were both too stubborn for their own good? Or, Hell, was it all about the fact that their parents were hunters, both knowingly and unknowingly?

It all started when a fairly simple hunt had turned for the worst. The single vampire they had found had turned out to be a dozen more than they imagined. Machetes swinging, the brothers had tried to stay back to back, but that idea was shot down when one of the creatures had grabbed the youngest by the lapels of his jacket and thrown him hard enough to leave a fairly large dent in a nearby tree, leaving the oldest surrounded with his back against another tree.

Dean Winchester sliced off the head of another vampire, giving the others pause as they contemplated what to do, giving the man enough time to get a good look at his brother. He paled, and if had been an outside observer, he would have said that his complexion matched that of the un-dead that cornered him. Sam, his little brother, was probably just as pale as he was, the color broken by thick streams of thick red that snaked their way down near bloodless flesh. One of his arms lay under his body, and the other was bent unnaturally. His body was folded around the tree he had impacted, contorted into a position that would have had him screaming if he were conscious. "Oh, shit! Sammy!" he cried, willing his baby brother to wake up, to say something, even if it was just an insult.

"Kill him," a vampire ordered, and the rest of the clan surged forward, hell-bent on destroying the human before them.

Having no time to cry out, Dean swung out with his machete, hoping to kill the blood suckers before they killed him and his brother. He let out a guttural roar as his left arm was broken and dislocated from his shoulder, and shouted out as another vampire almost crushed the bones in his legs. The machete fell to the ground as he tried to keep a third vampire away from his neck, his left arm uselessly hanging by his side. Turning his head away from the putrid breath of the vampire, he called out to a friend, hoping that he would answer. "Cass!" he shouted, repeating the name as he became weaker and weaker, the mantra repeating in his head as a strong hand started to crush his throat. As his world darkened, he was rewarded with the most comforting sight.

The vampires stared at the man wearing a trench coat who had just appeared out of nowhere, staring at them with an expressionless face. Blue eyes widened as he got his first good look at the humans and then the orbs hardened with an icy fury that the vampires unconsciously backed away from this stranger.

Castiel, an angel of the Lord, felt the anger rise within him as he saw the condition his charge and his brother were in. Taking a short sword from the inside of his coat, he flew to the attack, his wings, invisible to the naked eye, casting shadows on the surrounding trees, alerting the vampires that who they faced was more powerful than they were. Mere seconds after drawing the sword, Castiel put the weapon back after cleaning it. Then, as if it was choreographed, the heads of the foul, un-dead creatures fell to the ground. The angel zipped over to where Dean lay and cursed the fact that he had lost his healing abilities. Pressing two fingers to his charges' head, he called Dean to the here and now.

Gasping, Dean stared at Castiel, hating the way the angel looked unfazed, especially after he had killed the rest of the vampires. "Cass?" he muttered, mentally cursing his hoarse voice, but knowing that it was the price he had to pay for calling the angel or letting the vampire choke him. "You got them all?"

"I did. I thought that you knew better than to chase several of these creatures by yourselves," Castiel chided as he looked over the wounds with eyes that looked much deeper than those of a human ever could.

"There was evidence of only one vamp, Cass. How were we to know that one would lead to a baker's dozen?" Dean replied, wincing as fingers probed his injured arm. "Sam? How is he?"

"I have not looked at him yet," Castiel said, knowing that he had to take a look at the other man, but hating the thought of being near so much tainted blood. Deep down, he understood Sam's reasoning, thanks to his hosts' mind, but he still shivered at the thought of drinking the life giving liquid that came from a demon infected host. Taking a deep breath, the angel zapped over to the only man alive who could be Lucifer's host and looked him over. He knew that Sam was severely injured and would probably not survive if he did not get any help soon. "He is not well."

"Damn it, Cass! What's wrong with him?" Dean cursed as he tried to get to his feet to go and see his brother.

"I believe that you would call it internal bleeding, among other things," Castiel replied. Without warning, the angel grabbed the brothers and zapped them to the nearest hospital, impressing the hospital staff to remember that the trio had pulled up in Dean's car in front of the Emergency doors. Zapping back to the forest, Castiel grabbed the weapons and then went back to the hospital after putting the machetes in the trunk of the black 1967 Chevrolet Impala that was home to the brothers. He brought the car with him, placing it in an empty parking space. Then he left to place temporary wards around the hospital grounds to protect the brothers from the other angels who wanted to get the humans to say yes to become hosts to both Lucifer and Michael.

Hours later found Dean sitting in a wheelchair, having parked it by Sam's hospital bed as soon as he was able to be by his brother's side. Dean had been lucky. His arm had been an easy fix and his legs were not crushed or broken, but they had a couple of hairline fractures that would heal if he did nothing strenuous for the next couple of weeks. Sam, on the other hand, was more serious than that. He had a severe internal bleed, proving Castiel to be right, a contusion on his forehead and a broken pelvis.

"Come on, Sammy. I need you to wake up. We need to get back the road and find ways to keep us from being hosts and kill things," Dean murmured. "I need to kill something." He sighed as he leaned back in the wheelchair. Oddly enough, he found the hunt for supernatural beings was sometimes therapeutic, depending on the circumstances that he and his brother found themselves in. For instance, shooting rock salt pellets at a ghost and salting and burning its remains was fun, because you could throw your anger at it for a while before destroying the thing.

A nurse walked into the room soon after that, carrying a syringe full of sedatives. The doctors wanted to keep Sam under so that he would not freak out when he woke up if the pain was too much or until they could go in and fix the damage. They had gone in and fixed the internal bleeding, which was caused by a tear in the spleen and were now monitoring Sam's heart rate and blood pressure. The doctors wanted to wait for a couple of days before fixing the pelvis, aligning the bone so that it would heal properly.

Dean groaned pitifully as the nurse left, giving him a wink and a kiss that she blew his way as she exited the room. "I _really_ need to kill something," he said to himself, burying his head in his hands before rubbing his face in exasperation. "Well, that, or get laid."

Four days and one agonizingly long surgery later, Dean was still by Sam's side, reading a magazine that he would vehemently deny having even held it, let alone read it, if he was confronted directly. But seeing as there were no magazines that he preferred, he would make do with _Woman's World_. As he read up on how to stay slim despite eating every unhealthy snack in the world, he heard a slight cough beside him. Turning away from the odd article that had captured his attention, he stared at his brother who was staring at him with a smile in his eyes. The staring contest went on for about a minute until a nurse walked in. She admonished Dean for not calling for a nurse, but relented when he shifted his stunned gaze to her, his eyes wide in shock.

"I'll call the doctor," she said and left the room, apparently having forgiven Dean for not alerting the nursing staff.

Moment later, a young man entered the room with the nurse. In a well practiced dance, they checked the lines and tubes that ran from Sam's body to various other machines, making sure that everything was in working order before asking questions about how he felt and if he knew the year, among other such nonsense. It didn't take long for the duo to finish with the questions and then they moved straight to the diagnosis.

"Okay, Mr. Anderson. You have a broken pelvis, which we have performed surgery on and fixed the bone so that it should heal properly. We are also monitoring a tear in your spleen, and we may have to remove it if your health deteriorates because of that organ, but nothing is set in stone," the doctor said. "Now, with that being said, I have taken the liberty to prepare a regimen of painkillers and sedatives so that you may rest in comfort, but you must stay on a strict schedule. Do you have any questions?"

The brothers shook their heads in the negative and watched silently until the doctor had left the room before turning to face each other. "Christ, Sammy, I think that you gave me a heart attack! If it wasn't for Castiel showing up and killing those vamps, we'd be dead for sure," Dean muttered in a low tone so that any nurse or doctor that passed the room wouldn't hear what was being said.

"Sorry, Dean," Sam replied, shifting slightly in bed as he wasn't comfortable. He sighed when Dean clicked on a button, releasing morphine into his I.V. drip. The drug was welcome and he soon fell asleep without asking when they would be able to leave the hospital and leaving Dean, once again, with a copy of the much hated, but quite interesting, _Woman's World_.

A week later, Dean was driving the Impala down the highway, heading to Bobby Singer's Salvage Yard in South Dakota where he and Sam would rest until they were healed enough to get back on the road and hunt the supernatural. Checking his mirrors once more, he started when he saw a pair of familiar blue eyes staring at him in the rear-view mirror. Cursing out loud, but trying to keep it down so as not to not wake Sam, he narrowed his eyes at the angel who was sitting in the back seat of the car, wanting to wipe that innocent look that the angel always seemed to wear when he popped up from out of thin air.

"I apologize, Dean. I did not mean to startle you," Castiel said, eyes roaming the area they were driving in, keeping an eye out for any danger that could jump out at them at any time. "You are better."

"Yeah, a little downtime will help with that," Dean answered, flashing his signal lights to take the next exit. "What have you been up to since you admitted us to the hospital?"

"I have been keeping your presences, and mine, hidden from the Zachariah, and I have been searching for a way out of your destiny," Castiel replied. "I have so far been unsuccessful in trying to keep you and Sam safe from Lucifer and Michael."

"You do what you can, Cass. I won't blame you if you can't find a way to help us," Sam's quiet voice, heavy with sleep, spoke up from the front seat. Even though his voice was slightly muffled, he made himself heard above Dean's music. "Besides, not to make this sound like a chick flick moment, we have each other to try and figure it out." Speaking his piece, Sam soon drifted off again, back to where dreams made more sense and were a lot more comforting compared to the lives they currently led.

Dean looked at Castiel through the rear-view again and nodded his agreement, content to know that the angel would help them through this speed bump. They pulled into Bobby's salvage yard not a half hour later and both angel and brother manoeuvred Sam into the house and onto the couch where Bobby was waiting with a blanket and a pillow. They were an unconventional family at best, but a family all the same and they would pull through just like any other family out there in the world, safe, for now, from the real evils that lurked outside their doors.

_Hey readers! Glad to see that if you're reading this, than you have reached the end of this fic. I wanted to bring out a familial aspect to the brother's lives and bring in Castiel and Bobby, as I think that they represent a true family, however odd they are and the true nature of their lives. So, I squared my shoulders, sat down at the computer and gave myself a couple of days to hash out an idea, a plot and this story is the result of three days' work. I know that some of you are probably waiting on a longer fanfiction, but you will have to wait. I will continue with these one shots for now until I have one of my stories done or nearly done and then I will post them for your enjoyment. I am sorry for that, but while I was writing this fic, I came up with three more ideas to write up, and they all have the promising tendencies to make a long story. I am once more hashing out the wrinkles from another one shot that should be just as good!_

_Until then, read, review and never let your pen run out of ink, as that pen will lead you to something that could be worth posting._

_Cheesy, I know, but hey, I gave you encouragement!_


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